


The Dread Wolf Wins

by iie_wakarimasen



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Post-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:47:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9178285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iie_wakarimasen/pseuds/iie_wakarimasen
Summary: Lavellan refuses to wait quietly for her world to end. She bends her indomitable will and the intricate web of connections she built as Inquisitor to helping her wolf succeed. This scene is where she delivers Solas his victory.Standard disclaimer, I own nothing.





	

The Dread Wolf sat at the head of his great hall each day alone.

He watched his growing army, spoke with his agents, accepted reports from across thedas. It was almost ten years since the events of the exalted council. Though his efforts to weaken the evanuris had seen some success he was no closer to tearing down the veil than before.

In frustration he returned to the one distraction he allowed himself, reviewing the reports on former Inquisitor Lavellan. Ten years on from the dissolution of the Inquisition she was, to all appearances doing quite well for herself. She had taken the Nightingale up on her offer of bard training and thrown herself into politics and elven activism with a will. Her list of titles and honors was expansive to the point of absurdity.

Herald of Andraste, Comtess of Kirkwall, Vicomte of conquered Wycombe, Teyrna of the newly formed Teyrny of Tarasyl’an Te’las including the lands around Skyhold and the Elven lands granted after the 5th blight, Baroness of the Emerald Graves, formerly The Great Wood, Advising Enchanter to both circles of magi, a seat in the Antivan merchants council, a landholder in Nevarra, Leader of the Blades of Hessarian, Champion of the Alienage, High Keeper of the Dalish, she was even an honorary Magister.

Those were some of the titles most known to the public, there were others. Red Jenny, the Scourge of the Alienage, Chevaliers Bane, The Red Wolf, Herald of Fen’Harel.

She spread his word everywhere she went and she went everywhere in her ceaseless crusade for elven rights. He was aware she was using the eluvian network. She had to be, reports regularly placed her in multiple countries on the same day, often within moments of each other, but he had never caught so much as a glimpse of her.

She sent him recruits from all over the world and few told the same tale. The only constant was a beautiful bare faced elven woman with pale green eyes and fiery red hair.

He had told her to live, to enjoy her years of peace. He had not expected her to become his most cunning and dangerous agent. She wasn't even part of his network really. She simply had an uncanny ability to peg his agents. She refused to come to any base of his, avoided any chance for them to meet, but she passed information and artefacts to his agents, shielded them from detection, on more than a few occasions saved their lives.

Only one agent, Abelas himself, had been bold enough to dare ask her why and her answer was a knife in his chest each time he recalled it.

“The Dread Wolf made it clear he does not want me and I will respect that but I can not meekly wait for my death to claim me. If I must fight, and I must, I would fight for my people. Tell your master that if my life or death will buy him victory for the Elvhen the coin is his to spend.”

She restored his shrines and spread his worship as she worked among the elves. Fen'Harel's Victory was a tavern cheer in a half a hundred alianeges, the Dalish brought his statues into the camps at last and broke the likenesses of the other evanuris. In the last few years the likeness of a small red wolf began showing up on his shrines and murals, always tucked away where his wolf could not see her. When asked his agents were told it was for the red wolf, she who fought for the Dread Wolf and ever avoided his gaze.

By every appearance she had moved on without him, it was what he had wanted, so why did it hurt? Lost in thought he nearly missed the quiet puff of air displaced raising his hand just in time to stop his guards from skewering the familiar form of a boy in a large floppy hat as he materialised in front of the throne.

”Cole, what brings you here? Where have you been.”

”With her, she lets me help. She says I can bring you or someone you trust more than you. She has something for you, a gift, or a key, or an answer anyway. Can't trust an agent, it's too big, to dangerous for unfamiliar hands. You need the words she said the last time she called your name. Something no one can know unless you trust them enough to tell. Call me and I'll come."

He paused then, waiting for a reply.

"Cole, she who?"

"The Red Wolf."

Oh. He closed his eyes, swallowed against the pain, of course it's her.

He hasn't said anything but Cole nods once and is gone. Silence falls over the hall as the men who have heard wait for his response. They know of the red wolf, most consider her an ally, some a friend. They don't know what the words mean.

He can practically see their thoughts, who is she to dare summon the Dread Wolf. Who indeed, let them wonder. She has done everything he asked of her and more and asked for nothing. Spirits have mercy, he was going to go to her. He opened his eyes and scanned the room.

"Abelas."

A stunned moment and then his second recovered his composure and knelt before the throne.

"It appears I'll be leaving for a time. Expect me to be gone anywhere from an hour to two days, I'll grant her that much. Have anything that needs my attention before I leave ready for me in an hour."

"Yes my lord."

A quiet murmur erupts as he leaves the hall. Quickly he gathers his things, bathes and pulls his armor on. Arranges the hood of his furs so the wolf sits just so. Wonders what message he is sending by going armed and in full regalia. The wolf masks his eyes and somehow he knows he will be grateful for that.

At the turn of the hour he sweeps back into the hall to find no one has left, if anything the crowd is larger. Abelas is waiting by the throne so he doesn't hesitate but walks on. They bow as he passes but he can practically feel the speculation. Abelas is efficient, it's the work of a few moments to review and sign off on the gathered items.

"If anything comes up while I'm away solve it as you see fit, I'll return in two days or less."

"Sire, are you sure this is wise?" His voice is a bare whisper "What if it is a ruse, a way to separate you from your allies. Do you trust this spirit, this woman? Must you go alone?"

"I am in no danger from the red wolf and it is not in the nature of compassion to mislead. All will be well."

*Cole*, he thinks it loudly, sending the call echoing across the veil.

The boy materialised once more, a respectful distance between him and the guards.

"I'm ready Cole, lead the way."

The spirit hesitates briefly but leads the way through the mirror and into the crossroads. The spirit was uncharacteristically quiet as he lead past the winding rows of mirrors, traveling the unmarked paths with surety. I recruit myself to patience but as we pass mirror after mirror with no indication of where we are heading my curiosity gets the better of me.

”Where are we going Cole?”

"Home.Thenerasan. The place dreams dwell. She doesn't want you there."

"Than why do we intrude?"

"She is safe there, it is hers in a way nowhere else is, she can bear this there or nowhere. So much pain now and you make it worse and better and... *I can't breathe, can't breathe have to keep moving or if will crush me. Scrub the skin, I'm bleeding but it's not enough to wash clean.*... We go this way now."

He leads me away from the mirrors and off into the mists. The way is narrow here but solid and almost invisible from the main roads. I have never walked this path.

"Has this always been here?"

"Yes."

The path cuts through the mist and when the mirrors fade from view the path ends abruptly.

"Step where I step."

He leads me up near invisible stepping stones suspended in the mists.

How did she find this place? I don't say anything but he answers anyway.

"She came another way. Your mirrors don't lead here, she doesn't want you in hers where she might see you. We go the long way, an escape route"

Eventually a large shape loomed, Islands of masonry floating in the mist.

"Is this a piece of the Vir Dirthara?"

"Yes, and of other places. She stole the stones and the shelves, towed the walls she wanted. Built a haven no one can find. Built the mirrors, linked them here, her own small crossroads."

"She lives here?"

"She lives everywhere. She is safe here."

From the outside it is all neatly ordered bookshelves and well kept walkways. The walls themselves are tall and in good repair, the masonry patched and the plaster painted a pale ivory. She must have been working on this for many years to force such order out of this broken place.

Cole leads him around the walkway to the side opposite their approach. Almost concealed in a space between bookcases is an elaborately carved door that freezes him in his tracks. He had last seen it gracing the hall of the shattered library. It led to the room holding knowledge of himself. How had she found it, why choose that door of all the ones she could steal from the crossroads. What else could she have found there?

"It's a piece of you. She likes to be reminded, even though it hurts. Go in, she's not ready yet. Stay in the big room, she will come to you there."

His voice is flat and cold and I'm suddenly having those second thought Abelas was going on about.

"Do you not want me here Cole?"

"So much pain, each of you and you won't let me help and she can't. You could help each other but instead you turn the blades and treat the pain like armor. I don't like it. The door is just the beginning. Go."

"I'm sorry to distress you Cole. I will attempt to control myself."

The door opens smoothly and my stomach sinks and my heart clutches in my chest as I immediately recognize the depth of my self deception. I step forward onto deep jem coloured carpets layered across the stone floor, I am surrounded by my art. Murals and fresco from all over the crossroads, the self portraits from the shattered library, framed sketches I must have left behind somewhere.

There is a deep depression in the center of the room I recognise after a moment as having been a griffon nest from some broken aerie. She has filled it with a deep mattress and a mass of pillows and blankets, layers of furs against the pervasive chill of the in-between. She sleeps surrounded by my work. I walk over to the bed and see one of my own bundled fur vests, twin to the one I'm wearing across my armor. I must have left it behind at skyhold. she sleeps with it. I sink nerveless onto a low couch I immediately recognize as the one I slept on so many nights in my rotunda in skyhold.

This place is a shrine to my works and I can't process what that means right now so I focus on the other details. There is a staircase to my left that leads to a balcony open above the room I'm in. I can glimpse a great circle of mirrors between the railings of the balcony above me and I marvel at how many she has restored. Beautiful carven archways give glimpses into other rooms. The edge of a massive desk surrounded with strictly organized and labeled cubbies built into the wall, a small but well appointed kitchen, a stone hall where I can faintly hear the distant sound of falling water.

The room is gracefully and softly lit, intricately wrought veilfire lanterns and glowstone sconces. My armor feels painfully out of place, I am out of place. I know now why she never wanted me to see this place. She never moved on. She was always so busy, so outwardly committed to the elves of this world that the work she did for my cause seemed incidental. Now her actions are rewritten in my mind. Everything she did was for me, that the elves benefited was the side effect.

Suddenly Cole is seated next to me.

"You didn't know" he says in wonder. "I see it now, you thought she had built a life without you but she built a life around you being gone. The words sound the same but the meaning is different. Did you really believe she would let you go?"

"I did Cole, I had hoped… I never wanted to hurt her."

"The words. The ones she needs you to remember. She meant them."

There is a soft shuffling from down the hall and the boy is gone again. I stand and school my expression beneath the mask. I will not make this harder for her. She comes out and I am so still she does not notice me immediately. It is clear she doesn't expect me to have come so soon. Her hair falls damply to her waist, her robe is of deep emerald silk quilted in intricate patterns against the chill and sewn carefully to accommodate the missing arm. Her feet are bare against the too cold stones. Her skin is raw where she has scrubbed too hard, her eyes are red from crying, her dusting of fine freckles bright against too pale skin.

She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen and it is everything i can do to hold myself still and not throw myself at her feet. That miniscule aborted movement or some half heard sound draws her attention and for a moment her pain and want are naked across her face before she recoils as though I have struck her. Every movement she makes as she turns away to compose herself grinds my heart beneath her feet.

She tightens the tie of her robe and turns around with her bards mask firmly in place, an impassive facade behind which anything may hide and I die a little to see her so blank but my own mask holds and we simply stare at one another across the suddenly too small space between us.

Suddenly it occurs to me that I don't know what to call her.

I break against that thought and speak first.

"You summoned me."

"I did not think you would come so soon. I apologise for being unprepared."

Another silence and then a deeper breath, as though even with her training in control she can't get enough air.

"Do you know how your focus was made?"

Not the question I was expecting but I answer honestly.

"No. The orbs were a gift from one of the greatest artificer's arlathan has ever known. One of June’s slaves, she thought to buy her life by not favoring any single evanuris and her freedom with their secret. Instead, Elgarnan killed her so no more could be made. Mythal had her body buried with all the honor due a free woman."

"Correct. So far as it goes. She was not quite as dead as she appeared. Mythal could not save her entirely but her powers allowed her to live long enough to pour her wisdom into the well of sorrows. Where I have found it."

You know how to make a new focus?"

My voice was calm but my heart was racing. If I could regain my orb I could win. I had carefully tracked down, studied, and then destroyed 5 of the foci belonging to my so called siblings to no avail seeking this secret.

"I have known how to make you a new foci for more than nine years. The knowledge was useless without the correct tools and materials. The tools are painfully rare and difficult to obtain in their own right, the materials… the orbs can only be created from the heartwood of the true Dahl’amythal. Which has been extinct since not long after the veil fell."

My heart sank. So there is no hope after all.

"Or rather, which *was* extinct but is no longer."

"You... How?"

"Over the last few years and at great cost I was able to procure the tools and materials you need and to transcribe the knowledge of the well so you can access it safely. I have run everything by a trusted artificer, her suggestions are included in the notes I have prepared for you. Last night I was finally able to break into a long hidden vault of stolen elven treasures held by a powerfull Tevinter family. Among them, a single living tree held in stasis and a small box of viable seeds. I have managed to create a space where the trees can continue to grow despite the veil.

My mind is reeling but my body is still frozen. She has handed me my victory on a silver platter. What my entire army could not do she has done alone.

"How long," I manage to ask after what has to have been to long a pause. "How long will it take to forge a new focus."

"A year and a day given sufficient quantities of lyrium, which I have also provided."

"Show me."

I can barely think past the beating of my heart as she walks past me to the stairs. I watch her movements behind my mask like a drowning man sighting land. The scent of her perfume and the fleeting warmth of her passing are almost enough to undo all my careful controll. I glimpse a dark bruise on the flash of a delicate ankle as we go up the stairs and notice again the abraded skin and a stiffness in her walk. What did this cost her? When she reaches out to activate a mirror on the balcony I see the vicious bruises bracketing her slender wrist and my careful controll crumbles. I grab her hand and push back the trailing sleeve.

"Who hurt you."

It is not a question but a demand and her eyes flash with defiance as she yanks her hand away, holding it close to her chest as though my touch has burned her.

"It's not a killing wound Dread Wolf, and my pain is not your concern. This is just a reminder of the price I have paid to buy your victory this day. You can rest assured I paid him in no coin you value."

My title is a curse on her lips and I can hear her pain through the scorn that drips from her words. She slaps the mirror awake and steps through quickly. I take a moment to compose myself before I go through after her.

Her words circle my brain and I know, I know that she fucked him, whoever he was. That her body was the cost of this and I can see it tearing at her. I am incandescent in my fury and I have no right. None. It eats at me like acid in my chest. I didn't want to know if she had taken another lover, I never asked and it's not something my agents would report on without orders. To know that she did and he hurt her and she did it for me is past bearing.

I am so angry when I step through the mirror it takes a moment for the wonder of the place I find myself to sink in. We are in the physical world, I can feel it is so but the veil is absent or so thin I can't feel it. It feels like being able to take a true breath after spending too long in too tight armor. It feels like home. My anger is still there but I bury it as I look upon the young tree flowering in a prepared bed outside a sturdy stone cottage. I turn to see the mirror behind me. It's actually three mirrors I find, framed in one of my shrines. We emerged from the one on the left, the center was active but closed, the last was functional but unlinked.

She stood there next to the unlinked mirror, her composure shaky but back in place. She gestured to the last mirror.

"It is unlinked but ready, I recommend you link it to somewhere to grant you easy access to this place. Try not to bring many people here. The magic pressing back the veil is very delicate and is keyed to my power and to yours. Other elves should be OK in very small numbers, though the more in touch with their fade selves they are the less pressure they create and it can't see dwarves, but no humans and no qunari, they will shred it and kill the trees. Everything you need is in the cottage, the lyrium is in the cellar."

"The central mirror opens in Skyhold. I moved the government of the Teyrny to Ostagar two years ago. It's my private residence now. Everyone there is personally loyal to me and to you as Fen’Harel. You will be safe if you go there and they will serve you gladly. You will likely need to pull the veil down in the same place you put it up. The passphrase is Enasalin."

She moved back to the mirror that would take her home. As she hesitated there looking back at him he couldn't quite decipher the look in her eyes so when she turned away he said the only thing he could think of to delay her.

"If I need to speak to you, what is the phrase for that mirror?"

She started badly and gave him the saddest smallest smile.

"The only true thing in my world, the words I will drown the world in blood for. Var Lath Suledin."

The mirror woke and she stepped through, leaving him alone with her gifts, and his shattered heart.


End file.
